The Gatekeepers: In Praise of the Publishers Who Move Units and Readers

The issue of moving units vs. literary culture in publishing has taken on a more urgent and more public and seemingly more complex immediacy. A long confrontation between Hachette publishers and Amazon has ended, but not before a huge group of writers banded together to form Authors United, which sided with Hachette and took strong exception to the retailer's policies and conduct. And not before another significant, opposing, mainly online cohort excoriated publishers and writers for their (our) complaints.